CU seeks re-accreditation

A team from the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools was visiting the University of Colorado at Boulder this week to conduct an evaluation that is done every 10 years to ensure the university’s continued accreditation.

CU has been accredited by the commission since 1913. The commission accredits about 1,100 institutions of higher education in a 19-state region.

CU-Boulder has been doing a selfstudy for more than a year and a half.

During its Feb. 22–24 visit, the evaluation team gathered evidence that the self-study is thorough and accurate. The team will make a recommendation to the commission based on how well CU meets five criteria, and following a review process, the commission itself will take the final action.

Suggestions that arose from the 2000 site visit included reorganizing the administration, improving the student advising and auditing system and decoupling the campus capital campaign from the one for the entire CU system.

Concerns and recommendations raised after that review 10 years ago included enhancing diversity planning, addressing state funding restrictions to “retain and energize top faculty,” expanding the physical plant, improving city/university relations and improving learning assessment.

The report on the self-study, as well as other information about the site visit, is available online at www.colorado.edu/accreditation.

CU launches awareness campaign

Student journalists at the University of Colorado at Boulder launched a new inclusivity and diversity awareness campaign on Feb. 16 with U.S. Rep. Jared Polis as a keynote speaker.

The CU Independent, CU’s student-run online news publication, launched the campaign, called “Speak Out,” from the steps of the terrace of the University Memorial Center. The campaign will feature advertising on buses and T-shirts, in addition to a new approach to the CU Independent’s reporting assignments.

“I want to applaud this conscientious group of young journalists for generating this campaign,” Polis said. “By creating awareness among their fellow students, and at the same, creating a forum for that awareness to be expressed, they are profoundly elevating the values of inclusivity and equality at CU-Boulder. They are a credit to the campus, to our state, and to the values of American college students everywhere.”

The Speak Out campaign is an endeavor the students have been working on for nearly a year with the CU Independent Student Diversity Advisory Board and TDA Advertising Design, a Boulder company that donated time to help with the effort. The campaign is funded by donations and CU Independent advertising revenue.

CU Independent Editor-in-Chief Danielle Alberti said that the students want to raise awareness and encourage activism through the campaign, providing a forum for voices to speak out against campus issues such as racism, heterosexism, sexism and classism.

Toward that end, Alberti said, the daily online publication intends to devote resources in the form of staff and space on its website to the project, beginning a reporter “beat” system that focuses on social justice issues.

Forecasting space weather

A $32-million University of Colorado at Boulder instrument package launched by NASA on Feb. 11 could help scientists better understand the violent effects the sun can have on space weather, which affects satellites, power grids, ground communications systems and even astronauts and aircraft crews.

The Extreme Ultraviolet Variability Experiment, or EVE, is flying on NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, the space agency’s first mission as part of its “Living With a Star” program. EVE will measure rapid fluctuations in the sun’s extreme ultraviolet (EUV) output that can have profound effects on Earth’s upper atmosphere, according to Tom Woods of CU’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, principal investigator on the experiment.

EVE includes two spectrographs built at the CU lab that measure solar EUV radiation faster and at a higher resolution than before, providing scientists and space weather forecasters with the information to provide more accurate, real-time warnings of communications and navigation outages.

Data will be transmitted to LASP’s Space Technology Building at the CU Research Park for analysis.